CASE 450C Dozer

[TNFARMKID]

I have recently found a Case 450C for sale locally. What is the good, bad, and ugly of these machines? It would be just used on the farm for light clearing and piling brush. Maybe on occasion be used for grade work on barns etc. I know these crawlers are quite different then other brands of this era? The undercarriage on the old machine looks pretty good, the only odd thing I noticed was a previous owner had put loader pads on the tracks instead of grouser pads. Thanks in advance.

 

[AJ.]

The 450C is a decent dozer and has a good reputation, you might find the street shoes doing a lot more slipping esp when trying to steer with the blade in the ground, you could weld on grouser bar to them, it is purpose made and is common practice to build up dozer shoes when it wears down it is available from undercarriage dealers.
AJ

 

[Case Nutty 1660]

Unless you have mud most of the time the street pads get plenty of traction,, if it has a loader this was stock pads,, grozer pads are a bit to aggressive for loader work, ran both styles since the 60's a common misconception is that street pads get little traction but thats not true,, other than in really muddy conditions,,

one of five CASE crawlers I own and use on my farm,, we also sold them new,, great machines faster and more push power than other brands of the same time frame

 

[Penn]

With street pads on the 450 loader I had was impossible to steer pulling a load once the pads got clogged up with dirt the were as smooth a a sheet of ice and had no grip at all, i never used them on a dozer but as I had both the difference is very noticeable, the dozer had 16 and the loader 14, the seller probably put them on when the old tracks were worn to destruction and he came by the loader tracks handy, retracking a machine nowerdays is a tall order with the price of everything sky high.
P

 

[TNFARMKID]

Thank you all for the great input so far. How does the Torque Converter Drive and Transmissions hold up in these machines? I know
the steering is different than most brands is it reliable and dependable?

 

[Emu]

Had a 450 loader new back in the mid sixties, you are right they are not conventional like most of other crawlers, I could not fault it only thing I had against it was it was too fast and severe on tracks esp with a cowboy operator reversing the tracks, like everything else one either liked them or loathed them I liked esp for the backhoe, had it for about 5 years and had no power train problems, I traded it for a Komatsu as I was getting more work that required a bigger machine but still have a soft spot for Case.
Eddy

 

[Case Nutty 1660]

both g=styles will fill up with mud in certain conditions,, I have tens of thousands of hours running crawlers of all sizes and makes,, street pads are not for every job but neither are grozers type,, try using them on concrete/asphalt or super hard ground, they just dance with zero traction,,, another one of my 5 Case cralwers I own and use these days, each work ery well in their application,

 

[AJ.]

The guy interested in buying this machine showed concern about the street pads on the dozer otherwise we would not know what was on there, I advised him from my experience having put street pads on a TD15 side boom that had to lay pipe along a road for miles, we took the tracks from a 175 loader and put them on the TD15, worked great on the road but when having to go into the fields to bring the pipes out on a trailer it was impossible to steer on any incline or do a tight turn the track that was braked just skid along the ground or the driving track just slipped, one also had to keep away from any steep hills with no blade on and no grip on the tracks stopping could be a problem, we still did the job and when the job was done we changed things back so it's horses for courses, we all know what tracks are for what and the bottom line is street pads for loaders and single grouser pads for dozers, that is the standard, after that whatever one wants to put on it's their choice their machine.
AJ